Good Books - Jan Eller
May 21, 2008 02:01 PM Filed in: Jan
Eller
Worship Resources:
Bread for the Journey: Resources for Worship, edited by Ruth C. Duck, 1981
A book of resources for contemporary worship services
Women of the Word: Art and story by Mary Lou Sleev
Art and poetry about women in the Bible
Counting the Women: Sermons by Women, edited by Dorcas Gordon and Margaret MacNaughton
Shaping Sanctuary: Proclaiming God's Grace in an Inclusive Church, compiled and edited by Kelly Turney, 2000
Essays, sermons, liturgies, and hymns from ten denominations
Reaching for Rainbows by Ann Weems, 1980
Resources for creative worship
Women and Worship by Sharon and Thomas Neufer Emswiler, 1984
A guide to nonsexist hymns, prayers, and liturgies
Braided Streams: Esther and A Woman's Way of Growing by Marjory Zoet Bankson, 1985
A book seaving women's stories together
Womanspirit Rising: A Feminist Reader in Religion, edited by Carol P. Christ and Judith Plaskow
The Divine Feminine by Virginia Ramey Mollenkott. 1986
The Biblical imagery of God as female
Changing of the Gods by Naomi Goldenberg, 1979
Feminism and the end of traditional religions
Remember Lot's Wife and Other Unnamed Women of the Bible by April Yamasaki, 1991
Seasons of Friendship: Naomi and Ruth as a Pattern by Marjory Zoet Bankson, 1987
Her Story: Women in Christian Tradition by Barbara J. MacHaffie,1986
Status of women in Christian history
Miryam of Judah: Witness in Truth and Tradition by Ann Johnson, 1987
Kaddish and sabbath prayers
Miryam of Nazareth: Woman of Strength and Wisdom by Ann Johnson, 1984
Miryam of Jerusalem: Teacher of the Disciples by Ann Johnson, 1987
WomanPrayer, Woman Song by Miriam Therese Winter, 1987
Resources for ritual
Good Books:
The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
The Arthurian legend told from a pre-Christian, woman's view
The Priestess of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
Follow-up to the earlier book
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Novel about a young black girl and her life as it evolves.
Chaim Potok novels about Asher Lev -- stories from the Hasidic Jewish tradition
Dakota: A Spiritual Geography by Kathleen Norris
The Cloister Walk by Kathleen Norris
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
A novel retelling the story of Jacob's only daughter, Dinah
Almost anything by Anne Lamott
Small Wonder by Barbara Kingsolver and almost anything else by her
The Creation of Patriarchy by Gerda Lerner, 1986
Radical reconceptualization of Western civilization that makes gender central to its analysis
Dear Daughter by Colleen Ivey Hartsoe, 1981
Letters from Eve and other women of the Bible; to be used as Bible study
Diving Deep and Surfacing: Women Writers on Spiritual Quest, editor Carol P. Christ, 1980
Women's Reality: An Emerging Female System in a White Male Society by Anne Wilson Schaef, 1985
Hagar the Egyptian by Savina J. Teubel, 1990
The lost tradition of the matriarchs
Plain and Simple: A Woman's Journey to the Amish by Sue Bender, 1990
Drawn to Amish quilts, the author took a "journey of the Spirit" by engaging deeply with Amish families
The Female Advantage: Women's Ways of Leadership by Sally Helgeson, 1990
A look at four successful women leaders
Bread for the Journey: Resources for Worship, edited by Ruth C. Duck, 1981
A book of resources for contemporary worship services
Women of the Word: Art and story by Mary Lou Sleev
Art and poetry about women in the Bible
Counting the Women: Sermons by Women, edited by Dorcas Gordon and Margaret MacNaughton
Shaping Sanctuary: Proclaiming God's Grace in an Inclusive Church, compiled and edited by Kelly Turney, 2000
Essays, sermons, liturgies, and hymns from ten denominations
Reaching for Rainbows by Ann Weems, 1980
Resources for creative worship
Women and Worship by Sharon and Thomas Neufer Emswiler, 1984
A guide to nonsexist hymns, prayers, and liturgies
Braided Streams: Esther and A Woman's Way of Growing by Marjory Zoet Bankson, 1985
A book seaving women's stories together
Womanspirit Rising: A Feminist Reader in Religion, edited by Carol P. Christ and Judith Plaskow
The Divine Feminine by Virginia Ramey Mollenkott. 1986
The Biblical imagery of God as female
Changing of the Gods by Naomi Goldenberg, 1979
Feminism and the end of traditional religions
Remember Lot's Wife and Other Unnamed Women of the Bible by April Yamasaki, 1991
Seasons of Friendship: Naomi and Ruth as a Pattern by Marjory Zoet Bankson, 1987
Her Story: Women in Christian Tradition by Barbara J. MacHaffie,1986
Status of women in Christian history
Miryam of Judah: Witness in Truth and Tradition by Ann Johnson, 1987
Kaddish and sabbath prayers
Miryam of Nazareth: Woman of Strength and Wisdom by Ann Johnson, 1984
Miryam of Jerusalem: Teacher of the Disciples by Ann Johnson, 1987
WomanPrayer, Woman Song by Miriam Therese Winter, 1987
Resources for ritual
Good Books:
The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
The Arthurian legend told from a pre-Christian, woman's view
The Priestess of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
Follow-up to the earlier book
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Novel about a young black girl and her life as it evolves.
Chaim Potok novels about Asher Lev -- stories from the Hasidic Jewish tradition
Dakota: A Spiritual Geography by Kathleen Norris
The Cloister Walk by Kathleen Norris
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
A novel retelling the story of Jacob's only daughter, Dinah
Almost anything by Anne Lamott
Small Wonder by Barbara Kingsolver and almost anything else by her
The Creation of Patriarchy by Gerda Lerner, 1986
Radical reconceptualization of Western civilization that makes gender central to its analysis
Dear Daughter by Colleen Ivey Hartsoe, 1981
Letters from Eve and other women of the Bible; to be used as Bible study
Diving Deep and Surfacing: Women Writers on Spiritual Quest, editor Carol P. Christ, 1980
Women's Reality: An Emerging Female System in a White Male Society by Anne Wilson Schaef, 1985
Hagar the Egyptian by Savina J. Teubel, 1990
The lost tradition of the matriarchs
Plain and Simple: A Woman's Journey to the Amish by Sue Bender, 1990
Drawn to Amish quilts, the author took a "journey of the Spirit" by engaging deeply with Amish families
The Female Advantage: Women's Ways of Leadership by Sally Helgeson, 1990
A look at four successful women leaders
|
Good Books - Vicki
February 12, 2008 03:22 PM Filed in: Vicki
At
the Root of This Longing: Reconciling a Spiritual
Hunger and a Feminist Thirst
by Carol L. Flinders.
Many feminists have been skeptical about traditional spirituality, and their mistrust has not been entirely unfounded. The forms of self-sacrifice often required by the spiritual life--including silence and suppression of desire--are conditions that have been imposed on women for centuries. But, as Carol Lee Flinders makes clear, spirituality and feminism do not have to be diametrically opposed. Drawing on Western and Eastern spiritual traditions, Flinders traces her own developing awareness of the "mutual necessity" of the two disciplines and makes provocative suggestions about the potential of a feminist movement guided by spiritual principles. Flinders' Enduring Grace, on the lives and spirituality of seven female mystics opens their experience through the lens of feminism.
She Who Changes: Re-imagining the Divine in the World
by Carol P. Christ.
Fascinating look at the intersection of feminist thealogy and process theology. Images God as changing, becoming, sympathetic (movable, touchable), empowering, embodied, joyful, passionate, and hopeful. Definitely NOT my father's God.
Women Who Run with the Wolves, Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype
by Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Clarissa, Clarissa, I love you. This soon to become classic looks at the way in which a woman's wholeness depends upon her reclaiming her instinctual nature, trusting her gut. The title is based upon Estes' premise that wolves and women share a psychic bond in their fierceness, grace and devotion to mate and community. A Jungian storyteller, Clarissa uses fairy tale and myth from various and cultures to illuminate a particular aspect of a woman's experience...from spirituality to relationship to creativity and anger. Great opening to feminine self awareness.
Julian of Norwich: Mystic and Theologian
by Grace M. Jantzen.
Julian of Norwich is truly my sister, and so perhaps the recommendation of this book is akin to nepotism, however this scholarly book opened her story, her heart, and her thought to feed the same in me. Very whole-making and integrating. A grace-filled, empowering read.
Heart of Flesh: A Feminist Spirituality for Women and Men
by Joan Chittister.
I read this one many years ago and found it to be awakening, nurturing and prophetic at once. From the library journal - Chittister considers feminist spirituality to be the true essence and full potential of Christianity. Analyzing the history of patriarchal thinking, she shows how its tendency toward violence, authoritarian domination, and dualistic theology diminishes both women and men. The feminist spirituality she envisions is modeled after the radical example of Jesus, whose human vulnerability and compassion gave him strength to love the sick, the poor, and society's outcasts equally and to resist evil and injustice without violence.
Women at the Well: Feminist Perspectives on Spiritual Direction
by Kathleen Fischer.
Great resource for the healing of wounded feminine. Therapist, spiritual director, theologian, and teacher, Fischer explores ways that new approaches to direction can heal and empower women, bridging the gap between women's experiences and traditional meanings assigned by men. Some topics here are standard (paradigms of growth, images of God, prayer styles), while others deal with women's special concerns (issues of power, anger, and sexist violence), but all are seen through a feminist lens and reflects a feminist concern for inclusiveness, connectedness, mutuality and justice. I also have used and recommended her Transforming Fire, Women Using Anger Creatively with and to clients and have found it empowering and freeing.
The Politics of Women's Bodies: Sexuality, Appearance, and Behavior
by Rose Weitz.
A collection of essays covering such diverse topics as the sources of eating disorders, the nature of lesbianism, and the consequences of violence against women. The essays look at how ideas about women's bodies become culturally accepted and then how these ideals become powerful tools for controlling women's behavior. Fascinating look at culture.
Philosophy in a Feminist Voice
by Janet A. Kourany
This collection of essays by some of the most noted feminist philosophers reveals how feminist philospophy (the way we think about life) can be a powerful force for much needed social change. These essays by women offer an antidote to traditional Western strains of philsophy that discount women's experience.
on that note....
In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development
by Carol Gilligan
Offers a fresh look (now 25 years old!) at psychological theory and women's development as explored through the lens of women's experience dispelling the bias that finds women less-than on traditional male based pardigms of psychological health and maturity which are typically focused on separation, individuation, logic, and hierarchy. Female development, on the other hand, she asserts has emphasized attachment, relationship, connection, and communication.
Given Sugar, Given Salt: Poems
by Jane Hirshfield.
The poet in me cannot compile a list of favorite woman-books without suggesting Jane Hirshfield. I find her poetry to be opening and deepening, introspective and pensive. Deeply human. Each poem deserves a second and a third read in order for the clues to be uncovered in what was often at first glance a surprising discovery.
Goddesses in Everywoman : Powerful Archetypes in Women's Lives
by Jean Shinoda Bolen
From the Author I wrote Goddesses in Everywoman as a psychology of women, that has over the past fifteen years since I wrote it, become something of a classic. I've been told how useful it has been to facilitate discussions between mothers and daughters, sisters, and friends about their differences and similarities. It's helped men understand the significant women in their lives (something women who have given the book to husbands and lovers, with chapters or passages marked, hoped would happen). It's a book that has become a text in a very wide variety of courses from high school to graduate school, in mythology, psychology, women's studies, literature, creative writing, drama, and counseling, and had a major influence in women's spirituality. Its perspective and mine is Jungian, feminist, spiritual, clinical, right brain and left.
I found deep resonance in the chapters on the Vulnerable Goddesses and the issue of boundaries.
When the Drummers Were Women: A Spiritual History of Rhythm
by Layne Redmond
Anything by Marion Woodman. I especially liked Leaving my Father's House, a journey to conscious femininity. Another Jungian, her work is mythopoetic (think images...dream, myth, poetry) and introspective. Marion is considered by some to be a 'women's movement figure'. Her work deals largely in healing the wounded feminine. She also has collaborations out there with Robert Bly and Thomas
For anyone working with or dealing with trauma (returning from war, natural disaster, rape and/or domestic violence) Judith Herman’s Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence is a must read. She not only shows the parallels between private terrors such as rape and public traumas such as terrorism (including fascinating reading on how the understanding of female ‘hysteria’ and the prevalence of violence against women was not validated until after psychologists began studying men who were returning from war, having survived prolonged traumatic environments) but then moves forward into healing them. Most books on healing explain symptoms, offer exercises, and provide illuminating case histories. Judith does this, but she goes beyond just focusing on healing oneself in isolation toward a healing of self in community and the healing of the cultural attitude itself toward those who are wounded.
Finally, one of the most life-changing books I have read The Sacred Art of Lovingkindness: Preparing to Practice by Rabbi Rami M. Shapiro. From the back cover, “We are all born in the image of God, but living out that image is a choice. This inspiring practical guidebook provides you with the tools you need to realize the divinity within yourself, recognize it within others, and act on the obligation to manifest God’s infinite compassion in your own life.”
by Carol L. Flinders.
Many feminists have been skeptical about traditional spirituality, and their mistrust has not been entirely unfounded. The forms of self-sacrifice often required by the spiritual life--including silence and suppression of desire--are conditions that have been imposed on women for centuries. But, as Carol Lee Flinders makes clear, spirituality and feminism do not have to be diametrically opposed. Drawing on Western and Eastern spiritual traditions, Flinders traces her own developing awareness of the "mutual necessity" of the two disciplines and makes provocative suggestions about the potential of a feminist movement guided by spiritual principles. Flinders' Enduring Grace, on the lives and spirituality of seven female mystics opens their experience through the lens of feminism.
She Who Changes: Re-imagining the Divine in the World
by Carol P. Christ.
Fascinating look at the intersection of feminist thealogy and process theology. Images God as changing, becoming, sympathetic (movable, touchable), empowering, embodied, joyful, passionate, and hopeful. Definitely NOT my father's God.
Women Who Run with the Wolves, Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype
by Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Clarissa, Clarissa, I love you. This soon to become classic looks at the way in which a woman's wholeness depends upon her reclaiming her instinctual nature, trusting her gut. The title is based upon Estes' premise that wolves and women share a psychic bond in their fierceness, grace and devotion to mate and community. A Jungian storyteller, Clarissa uses fairy tale and myth from various and cultures to illuminate a particular aspect of a woman's experience...from spirituality to relationship to creativity and anger. Great opening to feminine self awareness.
Julian of Norwich: Mystic and Theologian
by Grace M. Jantzen.
Julian of Norwich is truly my sister, and so perhaps the recommendation of this book is akin to nepotism, however this scholarly book opened her story, her heart, and her thought to feed the same in me. Very whole-making and integrating. A grace-filled, empowering read.
Heart of Flesh: A Feminist Spirituality for Women and Men
by Joan Chittister.
I read this one many years ago and found it to be awakening, nurturing and prophetic at once. From the library journal - Chittister considers feminist spirituality to be the true essence and full potential of Christianity. Analyzing the history of patriarchal thinking, she shows how its tendency toward violence, authoritarian domination, and dualistic theology diminishes both women and men. The feminist spirituality she envisions is modeled after the radical example of Jesus, whose human vulnerability and compassion gave him strength to love the sick, the poor, and society's outcasts equally and to resist evil and injustice without violence.
Women at the Well: Feminist Perspectives on Spiritual Direction
by Kathleen Fischer.
Great resource for the healing of wounded feminine. Therapist, spiritual director, theologian, and teacher, Fischer explores ways that new approaches to direction can heal and empower women, bridging the gap between women's experiences and traditional meanings assigned by men. Some topics here are standard (paradigms of growth, images of God, prayer styles), while others deal with women's special concerns (issues of power, anger, and sexist violence), but all are seen through a feminist lens and reflects a feminist concern for inclusiveness, connectedness, mutuality and justice. I also have used and recommended her Transforming Fire, Women Using Anger Creatively with and to clients and have found it empowering and freeing.
The Politics of Women's Bodies: Sexuality, Appearance, and Behavior
by Rose Weitz.
A collection of essays covering such diverse topics as the sources of eating disorders, the nature of lesbianism, and the consequences of violence against women. The essays look at how ideas about women's bodies become culturally accepted and then how these ideals become powerful tools for controlling women's behavior. Fascinating look at culture.
Philosophy in a Feminist Voice
by Janet A. Kourany
This collection of essays by some of the most noted feminist philosophers reveals how feminist philospophy (the way we think about life) can be a powerful force for much needed social change. These essays by women offer an antidote to traditional Western strains of philsophy that discount women's experience.
on that note....
In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development
by Carol Gilligan
Offers a fresh look (now 25 years old!) at psychological theory and women's development as explored through the lens of women's experience dispelling the bias that finds women less-than on traditional male based pardigms of psychological health and maturity which are typically focused on separation, individuation, logic, and hierarchy. Female development, on the other hand, she asserts has emphasized attachment, relationship, connection, and communication.
Given Sugar, Given Salt: Poems
by Jane Hirshfield.
The poet in me cannot compile a list of favorite woman-books without suggesting Jane Hirshfield. I find her poetry to be opening and deepening, introspective and pensive. Deeply human. Each poem deserves a second and a third read in order for the clues to be uncovered in what was often at first glance a surprising discovery.
Goddesses in Everywoman : Powerful Archetypes in Women's Lives
by Jean Shinoda Bolen
From the Author I wrote Goddesses in Everywoman as a psychology of women, that has over the past fifteen years since I wrote it, become something of a classic. I've been told how useful it has been to facilitate discussions between mothers and daughters, sisters, and friends about their differences and similarities. It's helped men understand the significant women in their lives (something women who have given the book to husbands and lovers, with chapters or passages marked, hoped would happen). It's a book that has become a text in a very wide variety of courses from high school to graduate school, in mythology, psychology, women's studies, literature, creative writing, drama, and counseling, and had a major influence in women's spirituality. Its perspective and mine is Jungian, feminist, spiritual, clinical, right brain and left.
I found deep resonance in the chapters on the Vulnerable Goddesses and the issue of boundaries.
When the Drummers Were Women: A Spiritual History of Rhythm
by Layne Redmond
Anything by Marion Woodman. I especially liked Leaving my Father's House, a journey to conscious femininity. Another Jungian, her work is mythopoetic (think images...dream, myth, poetry) and introspective. Marion is considered by some to be a 'women's movement figure'. Her work deals largely in healing the wounded feminine. She also has collaborations out there with Robert Bly and Thomas
For anyone working with or dealing with trauma (returning from war, natural disaster, rape and/or domestic violence) Judith Herman’s Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence is a must read. She not only shows the parallels between private terrors such as rape and public traumas such as terrorism (including fascinating reading on how the understanding of female ‘hysteria’ and the prevalence of violence against women was not validated until after psychologists began studying men who were returning from war, having survived prolonged traumatic environments) but then moves forward into healing them. Most books on healing explain symptoms, offer exercises, and provide illuminating case histories. Judith does this, but she goes beyond just focusing on healing oneself in isolation toward a healing of self in community and the healing of the cultural attitude itself toward those who are wounded.
Finally, one of the most life-changing books I have read The Sacred Art of Lovingkindness: Preparing to Practice by Rabbi Rami M. Shapiro. From the back cover, “We are all born in the image of God, but living out that image is a choice. This inspiring practical guidebook provides you with the tools you need to realize the divinity within yourself, recognize it within others, and act on the obligation to manifest God’s infinite compassion in your own life.”
Good Books - Carla Kilgore
February 07, 2008 07:46 PM Filed in: Carla
Kilgore
Womanspirit
Rising: A Feminist Reader in
Religion
Edited by Carol P. Christ and Judyth Plaskow
Published in 1979, Womanspirit is a survey of the array of feminst theology during the vast expansion in that area that occured during the seventies. You can read all kinds of radical beginnings of new ways of doing theology. It even has a cool collage of women holding hands on the cover. I love it! I stuck paperclips all through it to find all these great ideas again. There is a more current book of essays with contemporary feminist theology they have edited called, Weaving the Visions: New Patterns in Feminist Spirituality, which I also highly recommend.
Sister Outsider: Essays & Speeches by Audre Lorde is a book of essays by a poet, and contains the much quoted essays, "The Master's Tools will Never Dismantle the Master's House", and "Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power". She addresses power, oppression, racism, sexism, and heterosexism head on and very thoughtfully.
A Body Knows: A Theopoetics of Death and Resurrection
by Melanie A. May
A deep and insightful treatment of an embodied, feminist theology by a woman out of the Church of the Brethren! It is dense, lush, and nourishing.
On a lighter note, Succulent Wild Woman: Dancing with your Wonder-Full Self
by SARK
This is a fun, spirit-filled, book filled with affirmations for all of us. It also includes an infamous story about a very Happy Easter!
In Search of Our Mother's Gardens: Womanist Prose
by Alice Walker
Though I love reading all kinds of Alice Walker's writings, somehow her books of essays pull me in the most. She is so vulnerable, and therefore so easy to relate to and to comprehend, yet also filled with insight.
The Poisonwood Bible
by Barbara Kingsolver
This novel about a family of missionaries, as told by various members of the family, is filled with feminism in that it takes each woman's point of view seriously, honors the different kinds of knowledge of different people in different cultures, and values people and their stories over products and empire. It is also a page-turner.
Edited by Carol P. Christ and Judyth Plaskow
Published in 1979, Womanspirit is a survey of the array of feminst theology during the vast expansion in that area that occured during the seventies. You can read all kinds of radical beginnings of new ways of doing theology. It even has a cool collage of women holding hands on the cover. I love it! I stuck paperclips all through it to find all these great ideas again. There is a more current book of essays with contemporary feminist theology they have edited called, Weaving the Visions: New Patterns in Feminist Spirituality, which I also highly recommend.
Sister Outsider: Essays & Speeches by Audre Lorde is a book of essays by a poet, and contains the much quoted essays, "The Master's Tools will Never Dismantle the Master's House", and "Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power". She addresses power, oppression, racism, sexism, and heterosexism head on and very thoughtfully.
A Body Knows: A Theopoetics of Death and Resurrection
by Melanie A. May
A deep and insightful treatment of an embodied, feminist theology by a woman out of the Church of the Brethren! It is dense, lush, and nourishing.
On a lighter note, Succulent Wild Woman: Dancing with your Wonder-Full Self
by SARK
This is a fun, spirit-filled, book filled with affirmations for all of us. It also includes an infamous story about a very Happy Easter!
In Search of Our Mother's Gardens: Womanist Prose
by Alice Walker
Though I love reading all kinds of Alice Walker's writings, somehow her books of essays pull me in the most. She is so vulnerable, and therefore so easy to relate to and to comprehend, yet also filled with insight.
The Poisonwood Bible
by Barbara Kingsolver
This novel about a family of missionaries, as told by various members of the family, is filled with feminism in that it takes each woman's point of view seriously, honors the different kinds of knowledge of different people in different cultures, and values people and their stories over products and empire. It is also a page-turner.
Good Books - Audrey DeCoursey
February 07, 2008 07:45 PM Filed in: Audrey
deCoursey
The
Economics of Womanhood
Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy
by Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Russell Hochschild
This great collection problematizes the intersections of women's liberation and globalized capitalism. And, you can't go wrong with Ehrenreich and Russell Hochschild.
For Her Own Good: Two Centuries of the Experts Advice to Women
by Barbara Ehrenreich and Dierdre English
The history of the United States as told through what doctors, parenting consultants, and other 'experts' told women about themselves.
Can't Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes the Way We Think and Feel
by Jean Kilbourne
Media literacy is crucial. This book offers engaging, specific examples of reading advertising with a critical eye, teaching how to be aware of all the ways advertising shapes our worldviews.
Women, the Bible, and Theology
Sarah The Priestess: The First Matriarch Of Genesis and Ancient Sisterhood: Lost Traditions Of Hagar & Sarah
both by Savina J. Teubal
If you want to know what was really going on with Sarah and Hagar… Teubal argues that these women were actually priestesses and the original figures around which religious worship sprang up, only later getting joined onto the emerging Abraham myths.
Postcolonial Feminist Interpretation of the Bible
by Musa W. Dube
Dube offers us hope of doing Bible study without reinforcing violent, oppressive motifs that imperial Christianity has been laced with since the time of Constantine.
Paul And The Gentile Women: Reframing Galatians
by Tatha Wiley
Wiley suggests that Paul might not have been so misogynistic after all, instead having been appropriated and distorted by later writers who used his name (as in writing Timothy, Titus, Colossians, and Ephesians). She explores the real radicality of that baptismal prayer to become one in Christ, "neither Jew nor Greek… not male and female…"
Ecofeminism
Gaia and God: An Ecofeminist Theology of Earth Healing
by Rosemary R. Ruether
Reuther is the star of the ecofeminist theology movement, and this book is a great place to start understanding the connections between the oppression of women and the devastation of our Earthly environment.
Longing for Running Water: Ecofeminism and Liberation
by Ivone Gebara
Ecofeminism 101, by a Brazilian nun, in the most lyrical and accessible read you will find out there.
The Body of God: A Ecological Theology
by Sallie McFague
This book plunges even deeper into ecofeminist theology, especially by offering a way to redeem and reintegrate the cosmologies/creation stories of science and religion.
Living Downstream: A Scientist's Personal Investigation of Cancer and the Environment
by Sandra Steingraber
Steingraber addresses chemical toxicology and its effects on our environmental health! This is amazingly accessible for a very smart book.
Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy
by Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Russell Hochschild
This great collection problematizes the intersections of women's liberation and globalized capitalism. And, you can't go wrong with Ehrenreich and Russell Hochschild.
For Her Own Good: Two Centuries of the Experts Advice to Women
by Barbara Ehrenreich and Dierdre English
The history of the United States as told through what doctors, parenting consultants, and other 'experts' told women about themselves.
Can't Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes the Way We Think and Feel
by Jean Kilbourne
Media literacy is crucial. This book offers engaging, specific examples of reading advertising with a critical eye, teaching how to be aware of all the ways advertising shapes our worldviews.
Women, the Bible, and Theology
Sarah The Priestess: The First Matriarch Of Genesis and Ancient Sisterhood: Lost Traditions Of Hagar & Sarah
both by Savina J. Teubal
If you want to know what was really going on with Sarah and Hagar… Teubal argues that these women were actually priestesses and the original figures around which religious worship sprang up, only later getting joined onto the emerging Abraham myths.
Postcolonial Feminist Interpretation of the Bible
by Musa W. Dube
Dube offers us hope of doing Bible study without reinforcing violent, oppressive motifs that imperial Christianity has been laced with since the time of Constantine.
Paul And The Gentile Women: Reframing Galatians
by Tatha Wiley
Wiley suggests that Paul might not have been so misogynistic after all, instead having been appropriated and distorted by later writers who used his name (as in writing Timothy, Titus, Colossians, and Ephesians). She explores the real radicality of that baptismal prayer to become one in Christ, "neither Jew nor Greek… not male and female…"
Ecofeminism
Gaia and God: An Ecofeminist Theology of Earth Healing
by Rosemary R. Ruether
Reuther is the star of the ecofeminist theology movement, and this book is a great place to start understanding the connections between the oppression of women and the devastation of our Earthly environment.
Longing for Running Water: Ecofeminism and Liberation
by Ivone Gebara
Ecofeminism 101, by a Brazilian nun, in the most lyrical and accessible read you will find out there.
The Body of God: A Ecological Theology
by Sallie McFague
This book plunges even deeper into ecofeminist theology, especially by offering a way to redeem and reintegrate the cosmologies/creation stories of science and religion.
Living Downstream: A Scientist's Personal Investigation of Cancer and the Environment
by Sandra Steingraber
Steingraber addresses chemical toxicology and its effects on our environmental health! This is amazingly accessible for a very smart book.